'Hot' products to avoid online
Filed under: Shopping, Fraud, Black Friday
Retail theft is on the rise, but not from hard pressed consumers looking to make ends meet. Rather, organized groups or gangs are hitting stores, stealing large quantities and reselling the goods, often online. Anyone looking for a deal should be wary, a lot of those too good to be true prices, really are. Popular product categories like electronics are popular "hot" items, but health and beauty products and pharmaceutical items are increasingly being stolen and resold.
The National Retail Federation issued a helpful alert this week along with a detailed list of products, including many popular brand names.
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Buying these products is risky. Shoplifting rings aren't monitored or licensed, don't store perishable products properly and can present some serious health problems. Gangs steal and stockpile products, and it's pretty unlikely they're being kept in a controlled environment.
Joe LaRocca, NRF senior asset protection advisor, said in a press release, "Most stolen merchandise is not stored properly and could expose unsuspecting shoppers or their children to a host of risks from spoiled baby formula and pain medication to inaccurate results from diabetic test strips or pregnancy tests."
NRF's most recent list includes:
- Abreva
- Advil
- Aleve
- Alli weight loss pills
- Benadryl
- Braun toothbrushes & replacement heads
- Bumble and Bumble
- Claritin
- Cover Girl cosmetics
- Crest Whitestrips
- Diabetic testing strips
- e.p.t. pregnancy tests
- Gillette Fusion Razors and replacement cartridges
- Gillette MACH3, Venus and Sensor razors and refill cartridges
- Lotrimin
- Matrix
- Nicorette
- Oil of Olay
- Oral B replacement heads
- Pepcid AC
- Prilosec
- Primatene
- Pureology
- RoC
- Rogaine
- Similac
- Sudafed
- Schick Quattro razors and all Schick refill cartridges
- Sonicare replacement heads
- Tylenol Extra Strength
- Visine
- Zantac
And be wary of:
- High-end liquor
- Cigarettes
- Red Bull energy drinks
- Blu-ray movies and player
- Braun electric razors
- Dyson vacuums
NRF advises only buying items from established retailers.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-04-2009 @ 4:37PM
marty said...
Also avoid Toyglobe at all cost
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11-04-2009 @ 7:21PM
Cherie said...
I hate to break it to the National Retail Federation but NONE of this stuff is stored in any type of controlled environment in any store I have worked in. Their concern is NOT consumer safety but rather consumers not buying stolen merchandise, enriching thieves at the expense of their member stores. In the drug store chain at which I used to work, ALL of this merchandise was stored on open shelved carts in the stockroom, mostly for months on end, getting dusty, sometimes expiring without ever getting to the sales floor. There is no way most of these chains store this stuff in any controlled manner. It's all about money.
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11-04-2009 @ 8:39PM
bellered said...
To suggest that they released this list purely to "protect" we consumers is a bit disingenuous.
Were I to stumble across a couple of made guys who were selling replacement razor cartridges out of the back of a truck, I might be worried about the morality of purchasing stolen goods, but I certainly wouldn't be worried that the cartridges might've "expired".
Obviously the primary concern the National Retail Federation has is that we consumers might buy stolen goods, and thereby deny retailers our money. This would've been a more effective warning had they more carefully vetted the list to only include things that truly become dangerous when handled improperly. Rather than things that truly include outrageous markups and price points to support endless ads in a competitive market niche (like disposable razor blades).
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11-04-2009 @ 9:22PM
G-Man said...
You're not suggesting that the National Retail Federation has anything other than the best interest of the consumer in mind, now are you?! Surely they would trade their profits and the enrichment of their membership in a heartbeat, for the sake of our collective health and safety! Had he not had his own thing going on already, I'm sure Jesus Christ himself would have been a member, if the NRF existed back in his day. God bless the NRF for their selfless concern for the common people of our nation!
11-04-2009 @ 9:28PM
marco polo said...
Bravo, hit the nail on the head! $5 per fusion blade..id buy a hot set in a hot minute
11-05-2009 @ 6:21PM
neen said...
yeah... i dont really think we need to worry about the razor cartridges being stored properly... and even the toothbrushes and replacement heads... we do put those in our mouth, but... even storage locations and the trucks that the real distributors use can be kind of dirty, so... not much extra worry there... they definitely would have done a better job at getting me to believe their intentions of this article if they left out the items that don't REALLY have any added risk when they're sold by theives...
and i like how the items to "be wary of" are just expensive items that people probably often try to find cheaper online... and if you're buying from a site that has some kind of buyer protection (ex. ebay or other sites using paypal), then go get that item cheaper! as long as you know you can get your money back if the seller sells you something that doesnt work
11-04-2009 @ 10:57PM
sugarbowl2009 said...
Then you better close down EBay..........!!
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11-04-2009 @ 11:51PM
U. D. said...
Hopefully the poor people in India that Walmart pays 15.00 a day to make a million dollars worth of clothes will sell some of their goods on the internet
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11-05-2009 @ 6:18PM
momma said...
for real. i won't be too concerned about the bumble and bumble i'm gettin' ready to get off ebay for half retail...
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11-05-2009 @ 7:20PM
clifford said...
Maybe these things are all overpriced, If they sold these items at realistic pricing in this economy or in dollar stores maybe they would be sold at true value [no pun intended], meanwhile these items are very available cheap at any Flea market, or at Walmart. I guess the larger cities like NY still have street vendors? The point is moot since all profits go to China. They seem to own us nowdays.
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11-05-2009 @ 7:45PM
Diane said...
It seems like a lot of these things are used to make methamphetamine's. sudafed, and benadryl.
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11-06-2009 @ 12:09AM
imafroghog said...
PLEASE......................God gave us a brain....USE IT! If it sounds too good to be true.......DUH! Come on America - step up and take responsability for your own decisons! Get Real!!!
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11-06-2009 @ 12:00AM
David said...
Theft is their problem, not mine. Their "asset protection advisor" should get his "assets" out of the office and do something more than just berate consumers for trying to stretch their dollars. These same companies don't have any problems manufacturing in third world countries employing next to slave labor. They move jobs overseas and then tell us we have to spend our hard earned dollars buying their goods with over inflated prices? I'll take a carload of those razor blade cartridges.
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11-06-2009 @ 12:21AM
Barb said...
How does someone steal a Dyson vacuum???
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11-06-2009 @ 8:48AM
Sara said...
To steal a Dyson vacuum you can either, walk straight out the door and pretend you don't hear people calling after you to come back in the store and show them a receipt OR if you are in a store like The Home Depot or Lowes you put the vacuum in a larger box, like a vanity or your trash can and hope the cashier doesn't open the box....but the best I have seen so far is to buy a few items and a Dyson vacuum, hand off the receipt, and have another friend push the same items out the door with the receipt, like they bought the merchandise even though you have it in the car already
11-06-2009 @ 12:44AM
Kathy said...
On one of those caught on tape shows they showed a rather large woman wearing a house dress shuffling into a store, squatting over a good sized tv box and then shuffling out of the store. I guess they'd been suspicious of her and someone was paying attention this time when she came in. Turns out she had quite a collection of big-box items from various stores!
Also, theft does affect all of us, the more merchandise shrinkage retailers experience the more they raise their already grossly inflated prices to cover the losses.
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11-06-2009 @ 5:03AM
Jack Keshner said...
A deal is a Deal.Who really cares where it comes from.If i can save a few $$$$ all the better for me.
What would Obama do ?
He would buy the WHOLE truck load.
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